I'm sorry, I can't make sense of what you're trying to do. The motors, are they AC as in residential air conditioning unit motor or just an alternating current motor? I'm guessing you're spinning the motor to generate a current. If so, what are you powering it with? Unless it's a gasoline powered compressor that you're spinning off the crankshaft I'm confused how you'd power it with a compressor.
Sorry, I should've been more detailed! You're right though. I'll be connecting a pulley to an engine that also spins a compressor. Alternatively, I've also considered attaching an extra pulley to my lawnmower deck, attaching the fan motor to that and connecting some lights to it.
So that's my initial setup, I know I need a regulator for the output (if it will potentially be too high) but am not knowledged enough to know what junk part I may pull it from except for maybe an old alternator? And at that point maybe I'd be better off using the old alternator or an old magneto engine?
Just really looking for someone smarter than I that would take a moment to discuss the ins and outs with me. Even if it's not practical I'm just really interested and looking to learn.
That makes sense, your best bet to make usable power would be an alternator. You could reuse the pulley system found in the car to make the physical hookup easy. There's two things to regulate power - the voltage regulator you mentioned is the first. Many alternators have a built in voltage regulator. A particular example is the '63 - '83 GM alternator that looks like this that has a simple 1 wire output that's regulated. I know some newer GM models have a regulator built in, some don't. You'll have to look up those and other makes on a car by car basis. The next thing for regulating voltage is a battery. A lead acid battery (car battery is this type) wired together with the alternator will smooth out the spikes and the dips in the voltage generated, but isn't required. If you have lights for example, without a battery, they'd likely flicker or brighten/dim when the alternator load or RPM shifted. More sensitive electronics might not like the voltage changes. Once you got the alternator running then you'll be able to use any car accessories like headlights, 12v USB chargers, stereo, etc. I found an informative forum post here about the problem as well.
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